UK smartphone sector saturated says Samsung

Oliver Smith is a senior reporter at The Memo, an online publication curious about the future of technology. He was formerly a reporter at City A.M.

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Samsung UK’s president Andy Griffiths

Samsung's UK president says a recent slowdown in smartphone sales is a sign that the market is saturated, and believes now is the time for the South Korean giant to double down on quality to continue its growth in a mature market.

The comments come ahead of a forecasted 60 per cent fall in quarterly operating profit and 47 trillion won (£27.7bn) in sales, both lower than expected, in Samsung’s upcoming third quarter results next Thursday.

“We’ve done better here in Europe and the UK, but the market has matured, it’s saturated. Everyone has got a smartphone and we’re past that adoption phase that happens in every single market. When you reach that ubiquity, you’ve got this fantastic base of users and you go into the replacement and upgrade phase,” its president, Andy Griffiths told City A.M. yesterday.

“We’re seeing the chance for better quality to come through as people do upgrade, exactly the same happened in TV… these are not surprises for consumer marketing companies.”

His comments came as Samsung launched its first UK Smart Society Barometer report, in association with research group Vanson Bourne, which highlights £5.6bn in efficiency savings being left on the table by British businesses due to a lack of technology.

Of the 1,000 firms surveyed, more than a quarter (27 per cent) said they missed out on contacts due to a lack of technology in their business.